Discussion question- do folkx here consider nuclear clean and/or green?
Discussion question- do folkx here consider nuclear clean and/or green?
As the title says, I'm interested in this community's perceptions on nuclear energy.
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There is no such thing as clean energy; it is ultimately a question of what waste products we want to deal with and how long we expect them to last.
Ironically coal was originally sold as a green alternative to cutting down trees and making charcoal.
But if we repeal the ban on nuclear recycling, 95.3% of supposed nuclear waste becomes fuel we can put right back into reactors (as it is just unused fuel). The only actual waste products are the transuranics.
I appreciate the comment on what waste we're willing to deal with. It's also important to look at the embedded energy of the process, the energy return on investment, and the overall ecological footprint.
Completely fair.
An EROI of about 7 is considered break-even economically for developed countries and the US average EROI across all generating technologies is about 40 (and going down as the EROI of coal and oil is going down due to increasing energy requirements). The current estimated EROI for current generation nuclear reactors (that have huge rooms for improvement thanks to nuclear recycling being currently banned) is 80 for their operational lifetime (Which is actually a fraction of its estimated safe lifetime which further reduces the net EROI artificially to increase safety margins).
Why is there a ban on recycling if that much is reusable? I thought it was an issue with reactor design?
It was created to subsidize the production of nuclear weapons during the cold war and ensure a massive stockpile for future use in the event of nuclear war.
There are readily available chemical processes for separating out the waste from the pure fuel (we use them for processing the mined ore already)
Cool.